Sailing in a friend ship This craft has brought us far Through waters ever-changeable We steered it by the stars The sails have been mended It leaks from time to time The wind is unpredictable And with that, we are fine This friend ship is a galleon With many decks and rooms An ocean’s worthContinue reading “The Friend Ship”
Category Archives: Literature
Why Do Men Build Walls?
“The heart of the wall is where the unloveliest material resides, shoved in with less artifice to fill out the construction. But this is also a place of refuge, the voids between stones providing cover for invertebrates. As we worked, ants, beetles and spiders would often rush out from within when we disturbed their havens.”
Love your Local Parks!
I was recently commissioned by the arts organisation Collective Encounters to write a poem celebrating parks and the role they have played during lockdown. I’m lucky to live near Sefton Park in Liverpool and have seen how vital a resource it has been. This poem captures how I feel about parks, the joy of natureContinue reading “Love your Local Parks!”
Finding Peace During this Crisis
Greetings, friends. As a follower of Eckhart Tolle I would say the best cure for anxiety is present-moment awareness. This poem came to me in response to the coronavirus crisis. Take care, Tom x At this moment The sun burns bright A cloud glows white The air holds light A bird makes flight AtContinue reading “Finding Peace During this Crisis”
Tasting the fruit of Yoko Ono’s poetic wisdom.
The Museum of Liverpool recently hosted an exhibition called ‘Double Fantasy’ charting the very public relationship and life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In this already Beatles-saturated city it was hardly something to salivate over but as my mum was in town we paid a visit. As a loop of the piano introduction toContinue reading “Tasting the fruit of Yoko Ono’s poetic wisdom.”
Permission to Live – a poem of positivity
Riding With Joni
Popular music history is full of train songs from Boxcar Blues to Chatanooga Choo-Choo and Joni Mitchell continued the tradition on this cut from her 1974 album Court and Spark. It’s a wistful tune – it is Joni Mitchell after all – but it rides on a gently funky chassis, suggesting the forward movement ofContinue reading “Riding With Joni”
Under The Radar
To all members of the soiled siblinghood who cling to the city streets, that feral fraternity bequeathed to us by Madame Thatcher, for whom the park bench is a couch and the church steps a social club, who live alongside our absurd society and happen to be addicted to the wrong things… To these homelessContinue reading “Under The Radar”
Do You Listen to Song Lyrics?
Recently I was reading a blog post about the debut album by one of my favourite bands, Dire Straits. As well as celebrating the spell-binding guitar and characteristic vocal style of Mark Knopfler, Another Grumpy Commuter paid attention to the excellent lyrics on the album. “Down to the Waterline” is a tale of teenage liasonsContinue reading “Do You Listen to Song Lyrics?”
How to Beat Facebook Addiction – The Jack Kerouac Method
I must get back that copy of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums that I lent to my friend Tobias. I keep thinking about it – it’s one of the most significant books I’ve read recently, and here’s why: it cured me of my facebook habit. For the two or three weeks it took me toContinue reading “How to Beat Facebook Addiction – The Jack Kerouac Method”
Tom George 